


Insipientibus

by MayCSB



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Domestic Violence, Drug Use, F/M, Relapsing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2014-09-12
Packaged: 2018-02-17 01:54:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2292599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayCSB/pseuds/MayCSB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She leaves the brownstone on a Sunday. She prepares him for her leave for weeks, gradually weaning him of her presence. She leaves fewer of her things around their – his – home, not wanting to extricate herself from his life, but him from hers. " Joan moves out, and without her, Sherlock relapses. Life is cyclic however, and they will be back together, but the one who falls victim to his own vices is not Sherlock. Eventual Joanlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insipientibus

**Chapter 1: Nullam Spem**

She leaves the brownstone on a Sunday. She prepares him for her leave for weeks, gradually weaning him of her presence. She leaves fewer of her things around their – his – home, not wanting to extricate herself from his life, but him from hers. She doesn’t have supper with him as often – she thinks it’s best if he goes back to what the way he used to live before it all got messy – and when she notices something’s lacking, something as simple as toilet paper or milk, she doesn’t promptly restock, as she normally would. She assures him she’s still her friend, his partner, flatmates or not, but she senses he doesn’t really hear her.

She knows he thinks she has betrayed him.

She has not.

She would never.

She thinks she has, too.

 

* * *

She settles at her new flat with ease. It’s nice, comfy. It has this weird feel to it, like it’s not welcoming, not meant to be lived in, but she reckons it will go away.

She makes it her home, she truly does. She sets her kettle on the stove – it never leaves that stove, not in the entirety of the time she lives there – stocks her pantry up with her favourite staples and makes sure all of her clothes are neatly organised inside the closet, but it never feels quite right.

There’s something missing, something her mum called “the Sherlock factor”. It lacks authenticity, livelihood, it lacks scattered messes and untidy cupboards, tortoises in cosies, cap-toe balls to trip over, the faint humming of tired tellies, hurried steps, it lacks his presence, their presence, the presence of the person she was in her presence, if that makes any sense.

This little voice – that bloody insistent not-so-little-afterall voice – keeps telling her that it’s best to maintain a healthy distance.

And so she does.

 

* * *

 

He decides to shoot again exactly seventeen days after she leaves. Nothing special happens exactly seventeen days after she leaves, he just realises he doesn’t care anymore. He shoots it, straight into the vein in his left forearm, and it feels so fucking good. And back at home we are, he thinks, as he rests his heavy body on the bed she used to sleep in. It still smells like her perfume – Lancôme’s _C’est La Vie,_ he knows it all too well – and he likes the feeling of corrupting her sanctum sanctorum, just the way she did his when she left.

He hates this room, and everything about it. Hate how it’s so bare, so naked, so listless and filled with nothingness. The bed is covered in only a thin white sheet, there is nothing on the walls and the dresser has all its drawers half open, allowing him a peek at its current emptiness.  There’s a lamp on the nightstand to his right, but it’s not plugged to the wall. It also doesn’t have a bulb, but hey, no-one would expect it to.

He has to get up to look at the pathetic piece of apparatus. It’s infuriating, maddening, awful. He picks it up, and with one swift motion, throws it against the wall, the pauper piece of wood and fabric dismantling itself atop the dresser.

He trashes the room that night.

 

* * *

 

He stops working with the NYPD once he gets too bored to be around the brainless officers and power-hungry detectives. He once again dedicates his life to cases he’ll never solve and drugs he can’t seem to ever truly give up.

Someone tells her he’s using again. He doesn’t know exactly who did it, probably Alfredo or Bell or any other of their old acquaintances who had obvious trouble letting go.

She knocks on the door, rings the doorbell, uses her old key to get inside the brownstone and look for him, as he watches from afar and chuckles at her insistency. He arranges for someone to tell her he’s back in London the next day, in rehab and all of that, but of course she doesn’t believe the skinny bloke he hires to let her know of his crossing of the pond.

She can’t be blamed for not trying.

She went looking for him thirty four more times.

 

* * *

 

He breaks into her flat eighteen months after she moves there. He enters through the master bedroom’s unlocked window, and walks around with great care to ensure nothing is left out of place, no signs of a break-in, no signs of him. He examines the room first, and finds it unremarkable. The bed, nightstands and dresser all match, probably bought from the same place at around the same time. A lamp rests on the left nightstand, and next to it, sits a framed rendition of one of her favourite quotes. It’s from the X Files – the sodding show she used to be quite fond of and he hated – and it reads “ _Every minute of every day we choose. Who we are, who we forgive, who we defend and protect. To choose a side or to walk the line, to play the middle, to straddle the fence between what it is and what should be. This was the course I chose.”_ He reckons she needs a reminder that her path is not a collection of mishaps and coincidences, but a trail of choices and memories.

He moves down the hallway stealthily, making sure no-one’s in the flat. He knows no-one will, he made sure of it, but chooses to take palpable certainty over deductive powers nonetheless.

He reaches the sitting room, which, unlike the bedroom, has quite a few discerning and curious details. A grey three-seat KARLSTAD shares the space with two unmatched armchairs, a beige sheepskin (a fake, and not a convincing one) and a wall-mounted bookshelf, in which he can spot a few of her favourite titles – _Franny and Zooey, Brave New World, Pale Fire, The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Emma,_ all books he can spot at a first glance, carefully lined up on one of the shelves.

He spots the picture last.

It’s quite big, easily the size of your average telly. There’s a couple, but he can’t really figure out who they are, not until he decides to turn on his mobile’s flashlight.

The woman is Watson.

The man is unknown to him.

He supposes she is, too.

 

* * *

 

He gets back to the brownstone with 2 grams of pure heroin that night. He repeats the all-too-familiar ritual once again, and as the needle finds his vein, he remembers why heroin is the only consistent thing in his life.

It’s three hours later when he decides his arm needs another needle, one loaded with black ink and guided by his experienced hand.

He gets a new tattoo that night.

It spells, in big black letters: **OBLITUS SUM**


End file.
